Cast as Jane Eyre’s friend Helen Burns
persecuted by Miss Scatcherd – I listen to
the Nutcracker Suite over my earphones
and read advice not to observe life as it is,
but imagine it as I want it to be – I escape
into a parallel reality, another dimension
Where an orchestra plays the prelude to
La Traviata and Marie Plessis explains to
Victor Hugo’s son she can’t live in a rural
town, she needs to be in the lively hub of
Parisian life even if it kills her through her
serious illness, but Jane Eyre returns and
Reveals her sister Maria died within the
death of Helen Burns – I had better try it
again and take a different tack to follow
a new dream – sing Les Oiseaux dans la
Charmille in Hoffman’s Magical Tales, the
Doll Song – so I become an automaton
Who translates strange documents which
change in front of my hallucinating eyes in-
to droll incantations harnessing the power
in sound to redo reality until my spirit sings
a jubilant line of notes in a bittersweet song…
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